


Mad World

by starsallnight



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsallnight/pseuds/starsallnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If it's a choice between madness and becoming a monster, she'll chose madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anotherthief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherthief/gifts).



The maid tugged hard at the corseting on the back of her dress, knocking the air out of Winter’s chest.  “There we are,” she said.  “All done.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” complained Winter, tugging at the front of her dress.

Her maid lightly slapped her hands away.  “Now, now, be good,” she said.  “It’s not every little girl who gets to meet the Queen’s sister.  And she’s going to be your step-mother soon!  You want to make a good impression, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Winter dutifully.  Her father had already talked to her and told her not to think that anyone was trying to replace her mother, but that part hadn’t bothered her. Her mother had died such a long time ago that Winter couldn’t remember anything about her. She knew what her mother had looked like from the portraits in their home, and had gathered that she was a kind woman from the way people spoke about her, but there were no personal memories of her to be replaced.  When she’d first heard the news she’d actually been excited at the idea of having a mother.  Recently her father had been gone from the house so often she felt like an orphan, and the thought of having two parents had thrilled her.

But that had been before the constant talks.  Nobody explicitly called them warnings, but that’s what they sounded like.

"This is a very important engagement, Winter," her maids had said. “Everyone has a lot riding on it."

"You have to be on your absolute best behavior," her tutors had said.

“I think this will be good for us, darling,” her father had said, his hand resting heavy on her shoulder.  “But you have to remember that she’s royalty and we, for now, are not. Whatever you do, you mustn’t make her angry.”

The words kept repeating in her mind, and by the time her maid had come in to dress her for the day she’d been shaking with nervousness.  The stiff, formal clothes and uncomfortable shoes weren’t helping matters any.

“Winter?  Are you ready to go?” called her father, and Winter sighed in relief. If her father was with her, it couldn’t possibly turn out that badly.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

Her father, probably sensing her nervousness, carried her down the hallway in his arms.  The guards at the door of Princess Levana’s room nodded respectfully, already familiar with his presence, and allowed him to pass.  Everything in the palace had been beautiful, but the room they entered was the most majestic Winter had every seen.  The ceiling was much higher that it had been in the hallway, and most of the walls were covered in wallpaper embossed with white and silver flowers.  Real flowers were in vases on nearly ever flat surface, and they gave the room a thick, sweet scent.  The wall opposite the door they came in was floor to ceiling windows, looking out at the starry sky.

Her father set her on the floor, and she was so entranced by the view out the windows that she didn’t notice the Princess approaching until she was right beside her.

“Hello, Winter,” said Levana, her voice heavy and sweet.  “Your father has told me so much about you, it’s strange to think we’re only just now meeting.”

Winter, too shy to meet the eyes of the woman who was to be her step-mother, looked at the bottom of her skirt instead.  “Hello, your Royal Highness,” she said, quieter than she intended to.  She hoped the Princess had heard her.

Her father put his hand on her back, prompting her to curtsey like she was supposed to, and then she finally got the nerve to look up.  Princess Levana’s lips were bright red and beautifully shaped, and her skin was as smooth as a statute’s.  Her eyes were obscured by the white lace veil that covered the top half of her face, which Winter was grateful for.  She was already so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her, and Winter imagined that her eyes would have been overwhelming.

Princess Levana laughed, bright and airy, and patted Winter on her head.  “You don’t have to be quite so formal, dear.  After all, we’re going to family in a few months.”

Winter smiled.  She felt like she’d been given a test, and passed.

“Selene!” called out Levana, and a girl even younger than Winter appeared in one of the side doorways.  “Selene, this is the girl I told you about,” said Levana, and she gently pushed Winter in Selene’s direction.  “Why don’t you show her around the palace while I talk with her father? We’d just bore her,” said Levana, and Selene bobbed her head up and down in agreement.

“Hi,” she said brightly as she took Winter by the hand.  “I’m Selene.  Levana said you're moving to the palace, and that we’re going to see each other a lot.”

“Yes,” said Winter. “I guess that’s true.”

 

___________________________________________________________

 

For six months they were inseparable.  Levana was kind enough, but she and Winter’s father were so busy with the wedding ceremony and the politicking that followed that Winter barely saw anything of them.  The Lunar nobility tended to leave their children at their homes outside the palace until they were old enough to use their glamours, and so Selene was the only child her own age around.

Selene was nearly a whole year younger than Winter, and the Queen hadn’t started her education in earnest yet.  As a result, she brought Winter with her wherever she went, asking questions the whole time.

Winter told her, as best she was able with her whole extra year of education, about the history of Luna and the royal family, and about Earth and the people who lived there.  She explained about the poverty, and the sickness, and their good fortune in having been born Lunar, but Selene didn’t believe her when she explained that the Earthens had no glamours. They had to track down one of the palace scholars to settle the matter for them.

“So it’s just a planet full of shells?” asked Selene, frowning, as they sat in one of the palace observatories and looked out the windows, the Earth hovering just above the horizon.

“Well, they’re not exactly shells,” said Winter. “Bioelectricity works on them. They just don’t have any of their own.”

“Oh,” said Selene. “That sounds like it would be sad.”

Winter shrugged. “I don’t know. To them, it probably just seems normal.”

They sat and watched the Earth rise in the sky until they got bored, and then they played tag. Winter won, like she usually did, thanks to the fact that she was older and therefor faster.  Once, a month or so after she had moved into the palace, a maid had taken her aside and suggested to her that perhaps she ought to let the heir-apparent to the Lunar throne win more often.  But Selene always seemed so delighted when she got caught that Winter hadn’t bothered.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

For six months they were inseparable, and then there was a fire.

Winter screamed when they told her. She had never been much of a crier, even as an infant, but after Selene died she cried so hard and so often that she was surprised she had any tears left in her.  Half of the things in her rooms were really Selene’s things, left behind without a thought since she’d be back again the next day anyway, and now that she was never coming back again it set of a fresh set of hysteria every time Winter stumbled over something that wasn’t hers.

“There, there, dear,” said Levana, the newly crowned Queen.  “I know the two of you were close, but crying won’t bring her back.”  She ran her thumbs over Winter’s checks, sweeping away the tears, but fresh tears replaced them in seconds.  Winter knew the adults were tiring of her constant crying, but she couldn’t make herself stop.

After months went by and there was no improvement in her mood her father became concerned.  She ignored her tutors, and her maids, and every adult who tried to talk to her. The only exception was her father, but he was so busy with the coronation and his new status as King-consort that he was barely able to make time for her.

“Perhaps she would do better if she were around more children her own age,” suggested one of the palace doctors.

“That sounds like a splendid idea,” said Levana.  “Lady Imogen is one of my most trusted thaumaturges, and she has children Winter’s age.  We can send her to live and be educated with them.”

Winter was afraid to say anything out loud, but she cast pleading eyes at her father.  She hardly saw him as it was, and if she was sent away she might very well be an adult by the time she saw him again.

“There are already children her age being taught in the palace,” said her father. “We can have her study with them.”

“Just the children of the staff,” said Levana.  “She’s a Princess now, she shouldn’t be mixing with commoners.”

“She needs to be around other children, and she needs to stay in the palace,” her father argued.  “She’s not getting any better being left alone, and with the political situation as it is, I don’t feel safe sending her away.”

Her father made precious few demands of Levana, but in return for that courtesy he generally won when he did put his foot down.  As such, she was allowed to stay in the palace.  Her father called in some of the best tutors he could find, and four of the children who lived in the palace were selected to be her classmates.  They came from the most trusted families among the staff, and were further chosen for their temperament, to make sure they would treat her properly.

Her tutor introduced her to them, and they each bowed in turn as he introduced them to her. They were all young, but not so young that they didn’t realize that she was a Princess and they were common.

In the end, all of them together weren’t enough to fill the hole that Selene left in her heart. They were certainly easier to be around than any adult in the Court, but they were also unfailingly polite, and rarely spoke to her unless she spoke to them first. All of them but Jacin.

He was quiet, too, but he struck Winter as the sort of person who was quiet by nature, not out of fear of her position. And while he wasn’t rude – he definitely wasn’t stupid enough to be rude the Lunar Princess – he wasn’t afraid to occasionally disagree with her, either.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

When her father died she hardly cried at all.  Winter, who had spent so much time crying and wailing after Selene died, found that this time the tears didn’t come.  Instead, she felt hollow, like she might not ever really feel anything again.

Jacin was the first to come to her.  Everyone else was too busy trying to clean up the disasters the Queen was causing in her grief and rage.  “I can leave, if that would be better,” he said.

“No,” said Winter. “No, I think I’d like you to stay.”

He sat with her for a long time, until one of the maids came to dress her for the funeral service.  The funeral was crowded with nobility and dignitaries, and Jacin was not allowed to attend, so she sat quietly as Levana wailed beside her.

When she came back, he was still waiting for her.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

Slowly but surely the hollowness inside her eased, and Winter began to feel normal again. But even as she healed, it quickly became apparent that Queen Levana was spiraling out of control.  Winter was swiftly approaching the age where she would be able to control her own glamour, and as such she was expected to attend Court more and more often.

She would have given anything to avoid it, but if she did not go on her own the Queen would send for her, and then the Queen’s anger would be directed at her.  She had heard rumors of Levana’s temper, but she had never seen much actual evidence of it until she started attending Court.

So she showed up dutifully and watched as Queen Levana did far worse than the rumors had prepared her for.

Any evidence of treason or disloyalty, no matter how minor, was enough to merit dismemberment, and Levana was not slow to increase the punishment to an outright beheading if she was properly offended.  Those punishments were performed immediately, with the whole Court watching, to better drive home the cost of slandering the Crown.  As time went on and fear took hold, there were fewer and fewer outright traitors to punish, and so any failure to be properly enthusiastic about Levana’s rule was treated as harshly as outright insult. The nobility, always prone to sycophancy even in the best of times, became utterly unbearable in their desire to appease her.

Winter managed it as best she could, trying to put on the best nebulous glamour she could accomplish over herself and go unnoticed from her customary position to the back of Levana’s throne.

One day, though, the guards dragged in an old man and his daughter. The thaumaturge that had brought them in bowed deeply before the Queen, and then handed her a screen.  “She was caught on video at a party last week spreading rumors so seditious I would not think to repeat them in your presence,” he said.  He smiled, clearly proud of himself for bringing whatever it was he had found to Levana, and if Winter had been Queen she would have stood up and slapped him for laying it on so thick.  Levana didn’t seem to care much what he said; her eyes were fixed firmly on the screen in front of her.

Winter could not hear whatever the girl had said from where she stood - the volume was so low that she suspected Levana was the only one who could hear it - but it clearly wasn’t making the Queen happy.  The anger was rolling off of her in waves, and Winter didn’t want to see what it was building to.  Even though Levana hadn’t said a word yet, the guards were used to her ways, and they already had the poor girl’s hand stretched out over the block and ready for the hatchet.

When she finally looked up, Levana looked to old man, who appeared as if he might pass out at any moment.  “You’ve seen this, correct?” she asked, gesturing with the screen.

The man looked as if he were trying to speak, but nothing came out but a stutter.  Eventually he simply nodded.

“So faced with this clear slander,” said Levana, practically spitting out the last few words, “You still chose to defend your daughter when my thaumaturge came for her?”

His daughter started sobbing beside him, and he finally found his voice.  “Your majesty, I know she shouldn’t have said it, but she was just repeating what she’d heard.  She’ll never do anything like it again, I swear.”

Levana stood up and took the hatchet from the guard.  Winter felt her already weak glamour starting to dissipate due to her nervousness.  It never ended well when Levana took up a weapon in her own hand.

Levana handed the old man the hatchet, and Winter’s nervousness turned to confusion.  Levana’s abilities with her bioelectricity were so strong that she had no real reason to fear anyone who wasn’t a shell, weapon or no, but it was still an odd turn of events.

“No, I don’t think she’ll do anything like it ever again, either. I imagine she’ll know better next time.  And so will you.”

The man looked at the hatchet in his hand with a dull, flat expression, and with a sudden sickening clarity Winter knew exactly why Levana had given it to him.  She covered her eyes so she didn’t have to see it, but she could still hear it, could still hear the woman screaming. She heard even the jaded Lunar courtiers gasping in shock.  Winter didn’t bother to wait for the Court dismissed, she left just as soon as she sure her legs were steady enough to keep her upright.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

“I can’t believe she did that,” said Winter.  She’d probably said it a dozen times now.  Jacin sat beside her, his hand on her back, trying to keep her calm.  “It’s… it’s bad enough when _she_ does those things.  Or makes the guards do it for her.  But to make somebody else do it? To make a man do that to his own child?”  She stopped talking and forced herself to breathe. She had covered her eyes, but her imagination had unhelpfully filled in the details for her, and she could still see it playing out in front of her.

“What did the girl even say?” asked Jacin.

“I have no idea,” said Winter.  “It could have been anything.  It’s not as if her father did anything at all, and she still took it out on him too.  How can it be a crime to ask for mercy for your own child?”

There had always been all sorts of rumors flying about the castle about Levana, even before she was Queen.  All sorts of slander and stories, even if Winter only heard it in bits and pieces when adults thought she wasn’t paying attention.

Nowadays she heard no rumors.  Everyone was too afraid to say a word out of place, especially around the Queen’s own stepdaughter.  But she’d heard all sorts of things when she was younger.  And she’d never had any reason to believe them then, but now?

“Jacin?” she asked, whispering so low he had to lean his head in to hear her.

“Yes?” he replied, matching the volume of his voice to hers, for which she was grateful.  She’d seen so many people pulled before the Court and made horrible examples of that she was afraid to voice it even here, in her own rooms, alone with her only friend in the world. She could imagine, far too clearly, both of them being dragged in front of the Court and forced to turn on each other, her for speaking treason, him for not turning her in.

“When I was a little, after the Princess Selene died, I know people used to say things. They used to say that it was Levana, not the shells,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said.  “I heard those rumors too.”

“Do you think they’re true?” asked Winter.

He didn’t answer her immediately, but he sounded very certain when he did speak.  “Yes, I think it’s true. She wanted the throne, and she made sure everyone in the way was dead. She’s done worse to people for far less reason.”

Her chest tightened as if someone had her heart in a vise.  “My dad died trying to protect her,” said Winter.  She didn’t even realize she was pulling at her hair until Jacin moved to stop her.  “Why would he want to protect _that_?”  There were tears rolling down her cheeks. Now that she was saying it out loud she realized she’d known for a while now, she just hadn’t been able to admit it to herself.

“Well, there are still people who say Channary was worse,” said Jacin.  “He may have thought she would be kinder. She was kinder, I think, when he was still alive.”

“I don’t see how anyone could be worse than her.  How does a person even turn into that?”  She had to clench her fingers into fists to stop herself from tugging at her hair again.  “She has so much power.  She’s probably the strongest Queen we’ve ever had, and she could do so much, but all she’s ever done is hurt her own people.”

“I don’t know if this is true or not,” said Jacin.  “But some people think that it’s the power that does it to them.  In the process of warping the minds of others, you warp your own mind as well.  That’s why the Lunar Court has always been so bad.”

Winter let that idea roll around in her head.  “Even if it were true, no doctor or thaumaturge would ever admit it,” said Winter.  “Do you think it’s better on Earth, then?”

Jacin shrugged.  “They have their own problems. There’ve been atrocities since long before anyone had bioelectricity.  And even if the Earthens do have it better, it doesn’t really matter.  We’re Lunar, and we have bioelectricity.  You use it or you go mad.”

Winter thought of Selene, her sweet little friend who hadn’t even made it to the age of four, who had come from the same family that produced monsters like Levana and Channery.  If she had lived, would she have turned out just like them?

Was that what it meant to be Lunar?  You could go mad, or you could become a monster?

 

___________________________________________________________

 

It wasn’t uncommon for a young Lunar’s bioelectric abilities to flicker in and out during puberty, and as a result it took a year before anyone noticed that she was failing to use her glamour as she should.  

“Some of your tutors think you're doing it deliberately.  Is this true?” asked Levana.  Winter had been worried that the Queen would be angry, but she seemed more incredulous than upset.

Winter had considered lying, but it wasn’t as if she’d be able to hide what she was doing much longer anyway.  It was rare for Lunars to go past thirteen without their abilities stabilizing, and past fourteen was unheard of.  “Yes, your majesty.”

Levana was wearing a very sheer veil, and Winter could clearly see her rolling her eyes behind it. “And what possible reason could you have for this nonsense?”

Winter had known the question would come eventually, and she had considered and discarded several explanations.  The truth, ‘I don’t want to turn into a monster like you,’ was right out for obvious reasons.

“I want people to see me for who I am,” said Winter, and she hoped that Levana wouldn’t interpret it as a personal insult to those who did use their glamours.

Levana sighed. Winter was worried that she would order her to start using her glamour again, but instead Levana simply shrugged.  “Teenagers get the strangest ideas in their head, don’t they? I’ll be amazed if you keep it up for more than a month.”

 

___________________________________________________________

 

“I don’t see how a simple glamour would hurt anything,” said Jacin.  “It’s not as if you have to force anyone to do anything they don't want to.  Something simple would be enough to stop the side-effects.”

They’d had this discussion, or some variation of it, frequently over the past few months.  “I’m still doing fine,” said Winter.  “It isn’t necessary.”

Jacin frowned.  She’d been tired recently – her dreams had started becoming more vivid, and since most of her dreams were nightmares, she hadn’t been getting much sleep. Occasionally, she would see something out of the corner of her eye that wasn’t really there, or start at some noise no other person had heard.  Most people hadn’t noticed anything, but Jacin spent more time with her than anyone else, and he’d always been observant.

“You’ve been doing well for a really long time now. But we both know it can’t last,” said Jacin.

He was telling her something she already knew.  People had noticed she wasn't using her glamour, and rumors had spread to every corner of the palace.  Some argued that she was secretly a shell, but most of the palace had seen her show some evidence of bioelectricity as a child, and few people believed that Levana would have let her live, step-daughter or not, if she were truly a shell.  Now whenever she was in public she could feel their eyes on her, whispering to each other their guesses as to her reasons, waiting with anticipation for her to crack open and let the inevitable madness spill out.

“I know,” she said. She looked down, concentrating on her hands, because she didn’t want to see the concern on Jacin’s face.  “But it’s better than the alternative.”

 

___________________________________________________________

 

“She’s growing up so beautiful,” people whispered to each other. “Even though she doesn’t have a glamour, she’s the prettiest girl in the whole palace.”

Winter wished they would stop saying it. At the very least, she wished they would stop saying it within earshot of the Queen.  It was as if everyone besides her had taken leave of their senses.  Levana was the strongest, the smartest and definitely the most beautiful.  She was the best at everything unless you actually _wanted_ to be punished for slander.

So Winter demurred whenever she was paid a compliment, and she avoided the Queen as much as possible.  She tried, as she often had in the past, to be as small and as unnoticeable as possible, but in the end it did her no good.  Levana sought her out anyway.

“What is it that you think you’re trying to accomplish with this?” she asked, making herself at home in Winter’s favorite chair in Winter’s favorite room as Winter stood before her and tried not to tremble. She had brought Lady Sybil with her, which did nothing to ease Winter’s anxiety.  "People keep asking why you won't use a glamour, and I've had to tell them you've had issues with your bioelectricity.   Honestly, Winter, it's an embarrassment."

“I just don’t want to use it.  That’s all.  It just never felt right for me.” 

Levana laughed, a cruel and sharp laugh, and Winter couldn’t stop herself from flinching. “You’re Lunar,” she said. “Your glamour is who you are. It’s your heritage your privilege.  At the end of the day, it’s the only thing that separates you from the Earthens, or even worse, the shells. Isn’t that right, Sybil?”

“Yes, your majesty,” said Sybil.

“Honestly, after all they’ve done to this family, I can’t imagine why you’d want to act like a filthy shell,” said Levana. Her voice was even, but she wasn’t wearing a veil, and there was nothing to protect Winter from the hatred in her eyes.  “What your father and Selene think, if they could see you now?"

Winter swallowed to keep herself from responding to that.  She cast about helplessly in her mind for something to say, something that would calm Levana.  Sadly, the only thing that came to her was the truth, and that was of no help to her currently.  “Your majesty,” she said, falling back on manners to help buy her time, “I would never-“

Levana cut her off.  “Really, at the end of the day, you're reflecting badly on me,” snapped the Queen.  Sybil nodded in agreement, looking disapprovingly down her nose at Winter. “And if I didn’t know any better I’d think you thought your were better than us.”

Winter looked at the ground and did not answer.  She had seen this before, every day for years at Court.  At this point there was nothing she could say that would help, no answer that would not be twisted and used against her.  Levana had decided that she was to be punished, and there would be no avoiding it.  

“Look at me,” said the Queen.  She took Winter’s chin in her hand and jerked her head up, forcing Winter to look at her.  Her face was twisted up with so much anger Winter was worried she would catch fire right then and there.  “That’s it, isn’t it? You think you’re better than me.”

“No,” she said, but Levana’s gaze went right through her.

“Don’t lie to me, Winter,” said Levana.  The hand on Winter’s chin tightened so hard that for a moment Winter was worried the bone would crack.  “Lying to your Queen is treason.”

Levana suddenly released her grip, and Winter took an involuntary step back, desperate to put at least some space between her and the Queen.

“I bet you think you’re strong, don’t you?  It can be hard, suppressing your abilities like that, or at least that’s what I’ve been told.  I bet you think you’re impressive, being so young and able to push it down so well,” said Levana in a nasty, mocking tone.  “You have no idea how weak you’ve made yourself.  I mean, look at you.  Completely unable to defend yourself, and soon you’ll be too mad to even care.  You can hide away all you want, but people have already seen you jumping at shadows and heard you screaming in the night.”

Levana brought a hand up to her own face, and in a daze Winter mirrored the motion. She could feel her nails pricking against her eye, and there was a little voice in the back of her head telling her that now was a fine time to start panicking in earnest. It was hard to pay attention to it, though, with her mind in such a fog.

“To think, for a moment I almost let myself feel threatened by a girl as week and useless as you.  There’s not much to you but your looks, though, is there?”

Winter could feel her nails digging into her skin, far too close to her eye.  It shouldn’t even have been possible.  Her nails were too blunt to properly cut, and pain and instinct should have had her flinching away long before she could do any real damage to herself.  However, for the moment pain and instinct had abandoned her, and her fingers ripped three deep, long trails down the side of her face.

“Ah, yes,” said Levana, as blood streamed down Winter’s face.  Levana smiled, and Winter realized she could only see her properly out of one eye.  Everything else was reduced to a red haze.  “Let’s see who thinks you’re pretty now.”

Winter felt the glamour fade from her mind, but she slipped into unconsciousness before she had a chance to realize what had happened.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

She woke up to Sybil calmly explaining to the doctor that poor Winter had injured herself, most likely as the result of some madness-induced fit.  Sad but inevitable, with her bioelectricity only coming in fits and starts.  

Winter struggled to sit up, causing both Sybil and the doctor to look at her. The doctor did not look particularly convinced by Sybil’s story, but he didn’t say anything to contradict it either.  Apparently, Levana still had enough respect for her earlier marriage to not want the whole planet knowing she'd attacked her own daughter. 

Sybil gave her a pat on the head and a few stock words of sympathy before she left, which did nothing but make Winter’s skin crawl.  Her head felt heavy, and even though she knew it was from drugs and not a glamour the effect was almost the same.

As she was leaving, Sybil leaned over to whisper something in the doctor’s ear.  Winter couldn’t hear what she said, but she could see the doctor’s face tighten.

The doctor fixed her eye up as good as new, and stitched up the ragged marks her nails had made in such a way that they healed reasonably straight and narrow.  Still, they left scars that were deep and long, trailing like tear-marks from her eye all the way down to her chin.

Winter didn’t know much about medicine, but she knew enough to know that Lunar medical technology should have been enough to heal a few scars. But she also knew, without having to be told, that Levana had forbidden it.

  
She was not the type to want her work undone.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

Levana turned out to be correct; people did stop telling her she was pretty.  For the most part they stopped speaking to her altogether.  Levana had made her displeasure clear for everyone to see, and so Winter became something of a pariah.

With that, any lingering doubts she had about using her glamour vanished.  She had Jacin, and her pets, and she was much happier than she had been in years without the social obligations of the Court weighing her down.  Now, when she spoke to people, they were polite, and as desperate to get away from her as she had once been desperate to get away from them.  True, things weren’t perfect – the blood that poured out of the palace walls and pooled on the floors was always seeping into her the hems of her skirts, and sometimes she slipped.  Other times the ghosts of the palace dead would moan so loudly through the night that she couldn’t get any sleep.

Sometimes she would see Selene, forever three years old, gesturing for her to come chase her.  Winter had followed her the first few times, but every time she caught her Selene would break away into ashes in her arms.  Winter lost the heart for it after that.

It seemed to make Selene sad when Winter wouldn’t follow, but she always eventually came back to try again. 

Other than Selene, Winter tried to ignore most of what she heard or saw.  It was too difficult to tell what was real and what wasn’t, and so it was easiest to just not let anything bother her in the first place.  Sometimes, she couldn’t manage it – sometimes the palace was so rolling with blood, rage and torment that she couldn’t just stare right though it.  When that happened, she would curl up into a ball on her bed and pop a candy in her mouth, shutting her eyes and covering her ears and focusing only on the sweetness dissolving in her mouth. Her hearing and vision might lie to her, but so far her sense of taste had always been safe.

She was lying like that one day when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She ignored it at first, uncertain if it was real or not, but then she heard Jacin’s voice.

  
“Winter? Are you all right?” asked Jacin. He seemed concerned.

“Oh, I’m fantastic,” said Winter, smiling brightly as she sat upright.  

Jacin didn’t seem convinced.  “Most people who feel fantastic don’t curl up in a fetal position,” he said as he sat down beside her.

“Mmm,” she muttered, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.  He was dressed in his new guard uniform, and he looked very handsome in it.  He didn’t look very happy, though.  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Everything is fine,” he said, in a tone of voice that indicated the exact opposite.  “It’s just that I have, unfortunately, attracted the attention of Lady Sybil, and she’s requested that I be assigned to her personally.”  He sighed.  “She wouldn’t be any more burdensome than any of the rest of them, really, except that she spends so much time away from the palace.  Levana likes to send her off to do her dirty work for her.”

“Ah,” said Winter.  More time alone, then.  Just her and her pets and the palace ghosts.

“Will you be alright by yourself?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Winter.  It made no difference either way.  He would have to go where he was ordered; he had no more choice in the matter than she did.  “I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry on my account.”

 

___________________________________________________________

 

When Jacin did not come to see her for several days she was disappointed but not distraught. Usually he let her know when he would be gone for more than a day, but he wasn’t always given much notice, and so it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear without telling her beforehand.  But when days turned into weeks, she became worried.

It was possible he had tried to let her know, but she hadn’t been around.  She turned over her rooms, looking for any kind of note or message he might have left.  He wouldn’t have sent her any sort of comm or text, not when Levana monitored all of her communications, but he did sometime leave hand-written notes where she would find them if he couldn’t catch her in person.

She checked her pillowcase, under her mattress, and in her jewelry box, but found nothing. Her tea-cups and the pockets of all her favorite dresses turned up empty as well.  She checked her screen every ten minutes for days, just in case he decided it was worth the risk, but that too proved fruitless.  After a day she checked all the old hiding places again, because sometimes her mind played tricks on her and she missed things, but nothing had changed.

One night in the menagerie, she asked for a sign, and the skies showed her a shooting star. That was a relief, but after a while she got worried again, because sometimes the stars lied. So, finally, she screwed up the nerve to go ask Lady Sybil.

Afterward, she wished she hadn’t, because sometimes no news was better than bad news.

She tried to curl up in her room, alone, and imagine ways he could have ended up safe and sound.  Her imagination declined to co-operate, however, and instead she spent far too long imaging just how many awful things could happen to a palace guard in enemy hands.  When she couldn’t stand to be alone in her rooms anymore she went to the menagerie, but her anxiousness upset the animals and they all refused to talk to her, which just made her feel worse.

Eventually, Winter found herself making her way to the Court.  Maybe Lady Sybil would have heard something new.  Winter couldn’t really remember how long it had been since she’s last spoken to her, but it felt like quite a long time.

She looked for Lady Sybil, but her eyes were distracted by the bright red hair of the girl in the center of the hall.  Lady Sybil was there beside her, but the course of Winter’s thoughts had already been derailed.

There was something wrong with the girl, and it took quite a long time for Winter to realize she was missing that soft, distorted, overly-perfect glare of a glamour.  Winter squinted to be sure, but now that she was looking for it, it was clear that there wasn’t even a weak one. And even at her cruelest, Levana wasn’t one to deny another Lunar her glamour.

She was only half listening to what was being said, but eventually the explanation clicked into place: the girl was Earthen.

Winter stared at the first Earthen she had ever seen with her own two eyes.  She knew staring was rude, but she wasn’t sure the Earthen girl could even see her, and it also looked like she was in imminent danger of losing an appendage, so she probably wasn’t going to be overly concerned with Winter’s lack of manners.

More blood everywhere, as if there wasn’t plenty of it in the palace already.  And it seemed awful to start cutting her parts off, especially when she’d come such a long way to visist.

“My Queen?” she said, and felt the eyes of the Court fall on her.

But her eyes stayed focused on the girl from Earth.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

“You could let me out of this cage, right?  If you wanted to?” said Scarlet.  Winter liked that her name was Scarlet.  She always liked names that were descriptive of the person they were attached to.  Scarlet seemed much calmer today, and she had even eaten some of the food Winter had brought without much prompting.

“I can’t,” said Winter. “I’ll get in trouble. You’ll get in even worse trouble – you’ll probably be killed.  Or worse.  The Queen is very good at coming up with things that are worse.  Also, I’m not entirely sure how to open it, either.”

Scarlet made a frustrated noise and slammed a foot against one of the bars.  “I thought this was your zoo?  How are you supposed to take care of the animals if you can’t get into their cages?”

“Menagerie,” corrected Winter.  Scarlet got that one wrong a lot.  “I let a few of my friends out once, and unfortunately they caused a lot of commotion.  I’m not allowed to have the keys anymore.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem like they trust you very much.”

“That’s probably true,” said Winter.  “But I’m also not the one they put in a cage.”

“Yeah, well.  I know something she doesn’t want anyone else to know,” said Scarlet.

“Yes.  She likes to keep secrets.  I used to be afraid to say anything around her at all, but these days she doesn't seem to mind me so much.  People don’t believe me like they used to.  Not even when I’m trying to tell them something important,” said Winter.  “Other people, though… well. I guess you found that out.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” said Scarlet.  She scowled and rubbed at her bandaged hand.

“Would you like another candy? I brought butterscotch this time,” said Winter, offering Scarlet the box.

Scarlet looked like she going to refuse at first, but then she gingerly took one the little yellow spheres and stuck it her mouth. She sucked on it for a few moments, and then looked carefully at Winter.

“You grew up with Princess Selene, right?  Earlier you were saying she was your friend.”

“That’s right,” said Winter.  “She died when I was very young, but we were very close, and she still comes to visit me sometimes.”

“Okkaayyy,” said Scarlet, dragging the word out strangely.  “Uh, okay. I’m sure she does.” Scarlet looked past Winter for a second, like she was checking for guards, and then lowered her voice.  “What if I were to tell you she’s actually still alive?”

“I would say you’re just as mad as I am,” said Winter.  “Which is strange.  I didn’t think that happened to people from Earth.  Are you actually part Lunar?”

“No, I’m not,” said Scarlet. “My grandmother came to Luna once, though, about fifteen years ago.  A man she knew rescued the Princess when Levana started the fire – Selene lost an arm and a leg, but she survived.  My grandmother smuggled her back to Earth, and they put her back together and raised her there, as Linh Cinder.  You’ve heard of her, right?  You’ve seen her on the news?”

Winter didn’t watch the news, but the name Cinder sparked something inside her anyway. She remembered the ghost of her friend, turning into ashes in her hand.  Or maybe cinders? She always liked names that were descriptive…

“No,” said Winter, very slowly. “Selene died. She died, and she…”

She turned to Cinder?

“She survived,” said Scarlet.  She sounded so insistent and so honest, but sometimes people lied to Winter, and it wasn’t always easy for Winter to tell.  She couldn’t look into their minds and be sure.  “She survived, and she’s on her way here.  I’m sure of it.”

Winter looked up through the glass ceiling of the menagerie and saw the Earth hanging in the sky.  Could she have been there the whole time?

“She’s coming here?” Winter asked.

“Yes,” said Scarlet.  “She’s coming back.  I don’t know how long it will take, but Levana’s here, and she has to beat Levana.  You’ll help her, right?  You'll be ready when she gets here?”

Fourteen years had gone by since the last time Winter had seen Selene.  And they had been so young.  Winter tried imagining her grown, but all she could see was the little girl she used to know, the little girl she still saw around the palace sometimes.  Her deceitful mind made it difficult for her to remember things that happened weeks ago, never mind years ago, but Selene was a point of permanence.  Cinder, though…

“Yes,” said Winter, still staring up at the Earth. “I’ll be ready.”


End file.
